Thursday, June 21, 2012

SkyTEST: Realistic Animals and Predators

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I would probably continue talking about changes to the creatures of Skyrim. At that time, I wasn't sure how compatible the mod for this time would be with Real Wildlife, so I was mainly just hoping I would be lucky.

Apparently I was; SkyTEST works beautifully with Real Wildlife, and I made the video for today while using them both together. SkyTEST changes the various animals of Skyrim to behave more like they would in the real world. The wilderness with SkyTEST feels much more like exaggerated nature rather than simply a plain with generated monsters to fight. You'll run into large packs of wolves, sabre cats fighting for territory and food, goats and elk defending their young, and rabbits sneaking cabbage from the local crop fields. The animals will now behave as you expect them to, and it makes every encounter much more interesting to witness.

I've added a bit more commentary to this video and was surprised at how well I was able to match my words to the action. I'm still learning, though, so I apologize if you have to turn up the volume or don't understand everything that I'm saying. That being said, most of the mod speaks for itself.

As I said earlier, this video was filmed while using both SkyTEST and Real Wildlife, and I'm really happy with how well they've been working together. If you'd like to watch more features of the mod in action, be sure to take a look at the videos uploaded by the mod author. If you'd like to know more about SkyTEST or think it'd be a valuable addition to your load order, you can find a more detailed description of the mod and the download on the Nexus.

That's all for now. Keeping with the trend of creatures, I intend to discuss some mods that add completely new creatures to the game in the near future. I'll likely post again sometime next week. Until next time.